


Cazadores

by ilup



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Backstory, Bitter Springs Massacre, Camp Golf, Characters Talking, Flashbacks, Gen, NCR | New California Republic, One Shot, Pre-Bitter Springs, Pre-Game(s), Short, Slice of Life, Smoking, Snipers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:49:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13167267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilup/pseuds/ilup
Summary: Stationed at Camp Golf, Manny and Boone spend a late evening sniping cazadores around Lake Mead. After sundown, they discuss First Recon's next mission. Manny recollects life before the NCR. Pre-Game. Pre-Bitter Springs.





	Cazadores

Cazadores are drawn to the waters of Lake Mead down from Camp Golf. Occasionally they meander up, stinging some poor, Strip-sheltered corporal until they’re redder and lumpier than a brahmin. If they aren’t dead, or just about, they’re pumped so full of antivenom they might just pop, making the bugs as deadly a threat as Legion. On a ridge overlooking the lake, First Recon pairs rotate duty, bagging cazadores by the dozen on summer evenings when they gather in swarms.

“Shoot ‘em in the head. Watch ‘em drop.”

Boone lines up his sight with the oversized bug eyes of a horny cazador too busy fraternizing with a lady cazador to notice the .308 ripping through his antenna. He breaks away and starts spasming, six hairy legs flailing around. He buzzes off toward the center of the lake, his wings beating air like treading water. The lady cazador recoils and turns her attention to another in the swarm.

“Missed,” says Manny. He’s peering through binoculars, his rifle slung on his back. His head throbs from the modulating and fervent buzzing present every evening.

“Wouldn’t have noticed without you.” Boone grits his teeth, lines up again, and nails two in one shot—a mating pair.

All First Recon are good shots, but Boone is best.

“Peak mating season,” says Manny.

“Hunting season.”

Boone puts down the frenzied insect in the distance. It drops into Lake Mead with a plash. He kills off a few more that have taken notice, their mutant senses strong even in dying light. It’s important to kill off the females since they could lay eggs. A few crumple and drop.

“Wonder where cazadores come from. Don’t seem like they’re from around the Mojave.”

“Don’t care, Manny.” Boone detaches the scope on his rifle and digs through his bag for the night-vision scope. Manny hands it over, prepared.

“Thanks.” They resume.

“There’s a pair off to the left.”

Killing cazadores dominates Boone’s mind, and the humming dies down. The bursts of bullets evade Manny’s hearing. Discipline and desensitization are key parts of First Recon training.

Manny sets down his binoculars and pops open a bottle of water. He sure would like a Fancy Lad, but snacks aren’t allowed on cazador duty. Cazadores like Fancy Lads, too. He takes a sip of water, and it quenches his dry mouth. A wind brushes down the ridge, ruffling their supplies. Manny adjusts his beret, patting down the felt, noticing Boone is doing the same. He’s set down his rifle. The swarm has dispersed, cazadores allayed for one night. Curfew is in an hour, though the two aren’t ready to move just yet.

“I’m ready to head to the Strip,” says Manny. Get away from where the cazadores roam and spend time drinking with Boone. Head to the Tops, play some blackjack. Since the battle at the Dam, soldiers earned a lot more free time. Manny stretches his arms behind his back and casts a gaze where the horizon melts black into red.

“We can’t.”

Manny sits up, alert. His eyebrows furrow, deepening tanned grooves, then relax. He sets a hand on his jaw, scratching black stubble.

“You missed Gilles’ bitching earlier. She was pissed,” Boone says.

“Damn.” _What was this about?_

Boone props his rifle against his knee, idly tracing a finger down the barrel.

“NCR’s mobilizing north of Mead. Khans made a nest in the valley. Gilles meant to speak with you individually. Guess she forgot.”

Khans. Old ties.

Boone continues, “We’ll be stationed on a ridge, overlooking what Dhatri calls Canyon Thirty-Seven. Khans will be coming through the canyon trying to exit. We’ll have the Khans covered there while troopers take the front. Recon starts marching in two nights.”

Boone’s face is relaxed, stony. It’s an opportunity for more target practice. A land breeze forces a chill down Manny’s back, thin shirt enough coverage for the Mojave evening but not for the night. His teeth chatter, faintly clicking.

“What’s the objective?” Manny clenches his jaw.

 _Jessup. McMurphy. Chance._ Old pals, back in the Khan days, would run raids on Jackals, Vipers, never Legion. Sometimes NCR. Manny never tagged along, staying back tending to caps and chems. Occasionally, they’d come back with the standard-issue combat knives, submachine guns, service rifles, and ammo he’s so familiar with now. They were all mixed in with other loot.

“Hanlon’s sent down intel saying they’ve been running raids through Vegas. Getting past Camp Golf and McCarran by dressing up as troopers and stealing dog tags. Orders are to shoot Khan on sight.”

 _Jessup holds a trooper helmet, poking at the goggles. He laughs. NCR can’t handle the Mojave like Khans._ They’d come back with uniforms, too.

“Don’t know how true it is. NCR’s spread out so far, can’t keep track of its own men,” Boone continues. “It’s a mess sometimes.”

Boone lights a cigarette. The glow from the House Resort and the creeping embers of Boone’s radioactive, pre-war narcotic illuminate the night. Manny takes out his own pack, the one chem he’d allowed himself to use. He figures since pre-war people made so many, cigarettes had to be good for you. He takes a drag, exhales it, and feels the buzz. It’s different from coyote tobacco, mellower and less grassy.

“What do you think the NCR wants with Vegas? Taking the land from the people, like back in North Vegas,” Manny says. “When I was a kid, the NCR came through hunting Fiends in the sewers. Came out with heads, policing the land like they already owned the place.”

 _It isn’t the first disembodied head he’d seen. If chem addicts didn’t have a knife, they’d use their nails, ripping and tearing at another’s throat like Jet lives in there. Sometimes North Vegas residents didn’t even fight over chems, but water or fresh food._ The Khans promised more.

Boone shrugs and taps off ashes.

“Strategic. Legion seem good to you?”

“Of course not. But House seems to be keeping it together on the Strip.”

“Don’t let Crocker hear that next time we go.”

There’s a chirp, and the two pause. It’s probably some lakelurk, its sonic pulse rippling through the water below. Lakelurks can’t last long out of water, let alone climb cliff sides. They haven’t been a threat to the NCR since the Dam, at least not at Camp Golf. After a moment, conversation resumes.

“Think House cares about North Vegas?” Boone says.

 _You can see the Lucky 38 from anywhere in the Mojave, and in North Vegas, it looms, practically casting a shadow in the day and keeping the homeless awake at night._ _House develops the Strip, populating the casinos with smooth talkers and street walking broads just as three rogue tribes disappear_. On the other hand, the Great Khans found themselves walking the trail, and the outskirts have been slumming it since Manny’s been alive.

“Nice joke.”

“NCR will take care of it, then. Same goes for the Khans. Caesar might like taking them under his wing.”

Manny swallows a scoff.

“Great Khans are too proud for that.”

 _The Khan wrenches out of Manny’s chokehold._ Part of initiation: duking it out with an elder. _Papa Khan watches all initiates, making mental notes. After the ordeal, he slaps Manny on the back, who’s hunched crooked on the ground. Manny folds over some more, cradling himself._ _McMurphy hauls Manny slack, puts him in a tent, and sprinkles healing powder over his gashes. Tells him to rest, that when he wakes up, he’ll be a new man._

Boone flicks his cigarette off the cliff and lights another. His fingers get antsy when they aren’t pulling a trigger. Manny does the same.

“Hm? Too proud for the NCR or Legion? NCR would rather wipe out the Khans. Too tribal. You can’t trust them.”

“How do you know that, Craig?” Manny works his jaw and takes a thick drag.

“They’re raiders.” Boone gestures his cigarette out to the lake. “We’re NCR.” Boone gestures toward himself and Manny. “Ideals don’t mesh.”

“I got that much.” Manny takes a shallow, then deep breath to clear his lungs.

“You’re a smart guy.”

A smirk plays around Boone’s cigarette. But he’s wrong that Khans are just raiders.

 _The Khans hunt geckos one day and bring back a variety to roast by bonfire. Soaked hides, red, green, yellow, are splayed, tied to wooden stakes, and laid out to tan. The women hack out cubes of red meat, chopping up any bit and throwing it on a skewer. The kids, soft and round, get skewers with thick chunks. Manny gets one with a few bones. Papa Khan gives a rousing speech and leads a prayer for fortune and victory. The tribe, at once, feasts._ Family.

 _Fucking traitor scum._ The words reverberate in Manny’s skull. Family. He bit back bitter memories, feelings tangling inside. At least McMurphy still keeps in touch, his letters received and burned every mail call.

Lights flick off in the Resort, leaving the cliff side even darker. Not long ‘til curfew. The specks in the sky could be stars or floaters. Manny feels around in his pack, pulling out and clicking on a fission battery-powered lamp, wrinkling his nose at the chemical smell. He hears a cazador buzz and hopes it doesn’t come toward the light. Boone doesn’t react. Must be imagination.

“Is NCR family?” Manny asks. He tosses the question into the air.

Boone shrugs and nods.  

“It’s a family.” He hunches forward a bit and rolls his shoulders, working out the strain of a rifle.

“If you had to, would you kill your family?” Best friend or brother? Great Khans are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters.

Boone scrunches his face, unbridled lamp light projecting deep shadows in his eye sockets and bright peaks on his cheekbones.

“What kind of question is that? Fuck no.”

“Neither would I.”

**Author's Note:**

> Brief, but I hope it's interesting. For a little background, Manny fakes sick to get out of going to Bitter Springs. Thanks for reading.


End file.
